WA-bred, UK-based folk songstress Emily Barker is growing a little tired of the music media.
More specifically, she is tiring of the press' insistence on comparing her to that other folk darling, Laura Marling.
“She's a very talented songwriter and steered the folk scene into the mainstream spotlight which is great, but I do find being compared to her a bit lazy, to tell you the truth,” Barker told Community.
“I understand that people sometimes need a point of reference and that the comparison fits to a degree, but sometimes it feels a bit like: 'oh, there's a female singer-songwriter and look, she's playing an acoustic guitar...she must be the new Laura Marling!'
“If I could write my own review, I'd name drop the people that inspire me the most, such as Aretha Franklin, Low, Neil Young, Gillian Welch and PJ Harvey.”
Hailing from Bridgetown, Barker called London home for the past six years but recently moved to Stroud, in the picturesque Cotswolds region (near Bristol).
“It's great being out of the big smoke and back in the countryside…I'm a country girl at heart,” she said.
Barker recalls her earliest music memories as being listening to Comes a Time by Neil Young on an old record player, and singing folk tunes with her mum, brothers and sister.
She landed in Old Blighty with Aussie friend Andrea Beatty, with whom she previously performed in Perth as a duo, before joining a band in Cambridge called the-low-country, and eventually moving to London and meeting the girls from The Red Clay Halo.
With a Glastonbury appearance under her belt and having seen her song Nostalgia become the BAFTA-winning theme tune to BBC One drama series Wallander, she is now back in Perth to promote third album Almanac.
“It's about beginnings and endings, cycles and patterns in life, the sea, a woman accused of being a witch, and the shameful truths of colonial history in Australia,” said Barker, who will enjoy her first WA Christmas in five years.
Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo are at the Rosemount Hotel, North Perth, on December 10.
Emilia Vranjes